Submissions

Author Guidelines

1. General information

Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights is an open access journal that publishes original research works regarding social and human rights twice a year (March and October).

The Journal does not charge any fee to authors for the submission, evaluation or publication of articles.

In addition to articles resulting from original research, Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights publishes notes and commentaries by nationally and internationally-recognized experts given their status or membership in relevant organizations. The journal also published reviews of publications or scientific works.

2. Manuscript submission instructions

By submitting a manuscript, it is understood that the author has read the journal’s ethics policy and accepts the journal’s Code of Ethics, which can be found in its web page.

The original manuscript must be unpublished. The accepted publication languages are Spanish, English, French and Italian. Authors are responsible for the proper use of the language and may use professional language services before submitting the manuscript.

If the articles include complementary material deposited in public repositories, its Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or Handle identifier must be indicated.

Regarding the authorship of the manuscript, the authors guarantee the inclusion of those persons who have made a significant scientific and intellectual contribution in the conceptualization and planning of the work as well as in the interpretation of the results and writing. The authors should be ranked in the manuscript according to their level of responsibility and involvement.

Contributions may be sent by e-mail to one of the following addresses:  revistalexsocial@gmail.com or revlexsocial@upo.es.

3. Format specifications

3.1. Content 

Articles should be written and submitted in the Word format template available at the following link template Volumen 14 (1) 2024 A separate template adapted to this format is available for the reviews, which can be downloaded from this link Template Review Volume 14 (1) 2024. No article will be accepted if it is not written in the template. Most of the journal’s format and style rules are already integrated in it.

The first page should contain the author's name and surname, academic or professional affiliation, e-mail address and ORCID ID as follows http://orcid.org/0000-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX. To obtain it, see this Guide https://guiasbib.upo.es/orcid

All articles must have a title and an abstract of no more than 200 words in the language in which the article is written and in English as well as a section for keywords (between 3 and 5) in the languages indicated.

This should be followed by a table of contents in the language in which the article is written. Its structure should abide by the following sequence: I. (first level); 1. (second level); 1.1. (third level); 1.1.1. (fourth level); a) (fifth level); a.1 (sixth level).

There is no minimum or maximum length limit. The text should be single-spaced (1), justified, with no space between paragraphs and without indentations. The font used in text and footnotes shall be Times New Roman and the font size in the text shall be 12 and for footnotes it shall be 10. The titles of sections/sub-sections shall be in lowercase, bold text and justified.

Underlining, words or phrases in bold within the text should be avoided (with the exception of the titles of headings or sub-headings). Italics may be used in the text.

Notes should be placed at the foot of the page (not at the end of the article), numbered using Arabic characters and in superscript format. Abstrain from using indentation, italics, underlining or bold in this text.

A final bibliography of all works (articles, books and book chapters) cited in the article must be included at the end. Do not include page references. Do not include standards, reports or similar documents (if the author wishes to reference them, use Annex/s at the end). The author's surname and first name should be cited in full. Do not abbreviate even if several works of the same author are referenced.

The bibliographic listing should include the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of those articles that have it. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string that is assigned to a document by the publisher of the initial electronic publication. It will be referenced with the URL format, i.e., the document will be cited as https://doi.org/10.46661/lexsocial.7479. To facilitate the task there is a tool that generates it automatically. The steps to follow are to go to this link, à copy/paste the bibliography list in the blank box à click on "Submit" and the tool will automatically generate a DOI à copy/paste the result into the article.

Each reference should be separated by a line, using "Enter". See example in "Citations" tab of this link: https://guiasbib.upo.es/publicacion/programar_publicacion

Incorrect example:

RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ, A., La Carta Social Europea, Madrid, Tecnos, 2009.

------------, “El despido objetivo”, Revista de Derecho Social, 2015, nº 3.

Correct example:

RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ, A., La Carta Social Europea, Madrid, Tecnos, 2009.

RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ, A., “El despido objetivo”, Revista de Derecho Social, 2015, nº 3.

Regarding judicial decisions and similar citations:

1.    a) Constitutional Court: STC 140/2018 de 20 de diciembre de 2018
2.    b) Supreme Court: STS (orden jurisdiccional) de 20 de octubre de 2015 (Rec. 2340/2014)
3.   c) High Courts of Justice: STSJ de Andalucía/Málaga (orden jurisdiccional) de 20 de octubre de 2015 (Rec. 2340/2014)
4.    d) Labour Court: Sentencia del Juzgado de lo Social/Penal/Civil nº 1 de Sevilla, de 10 de marzo de 2015 (Procedimiento nº 2340/2016 o nº de recurso)
5.   e) Court of Justice of the European Union: STJUE de 21 de junio de 2017, Wolfram Bechtel, Marie-Laure Bechtel y Finanzamt Offenburg, asunto C-20/16.
6.  f) European Court of Human Rights:  STEDH de 18 de junio de 2009, Budina contra Rusia, nº 37580/05.
7.    g) Conclusions of the European Commitee Social Rights:

             -If it concerns the Conclusions of a country that has ratified the revised version of the European Social Charter (1996):  Conclusions 2003, France, art. 12.3.

            -In the case of Conclusions of a country that has ratified only the 1961 European Social Charter and/or the 1988 Protocol: Conclusions XIX-4, Spain, art. 12.3.

12. h) Decisions on the merits/admissibility/immediate measures of the European Committee of Social Rights: Centre européen des droits des Roms (CEDR) v. France, complaint n°51/2008, decision on the merits/admissibility/immediate measures of 19 October 2009, art. 12.3.

3.2. Tables

If tables are included in the article, they must be submitted as an editable text. They will not be accepted as images. They should be placed within the manuscript, next to the part of the text where they are mentioned. They should be numbered according to the order of appearance in the text. Additionally, a table footnote shall be included with a title, a brief description of the contents of the table and, where appropriate, the source or if it’s the author’s own creation “own elaboration” (e.g. Table nº 1. Poverty level. Fte:/Own elaboration). Do not use vertical guidelines or shaded cells.

3.3. Images

The inclusion of images in manuscripts is allowed. Their use must respect the source of origin, in coherence with scientific ethics. Fraudulent manipulation will not be accepted. In case of detection, the journal's Editor in Chief or Managing Editor will inform the Editorial Committee, and will act accordingly. The magazine applies the following rules for the images: it is not allowed to enhance, darken, move, remove or add any element of the images. Adjustments to brightness, clarity, contrast or color balance are allowed as long as they do not obscure or remove any visible information in the original image and are solely for the purpose of making them clearer and more understandable. If non-linear adjustments (such as changes in gamma parameters) are made, this must be indicated in its caption.

General specifications and considerations:

• The original image will be embedded in the manuscript, if the application allows it. If this is not possible, they will be sent separately, each one in a separate file.
• Number the illustrations consecutively (e.g., Image No. 1).
• Then, write a caption for each of them, including a short title, a brief description and the source/own elaboration.
• Verify that the image displays correctly and is uniform and consistent with the text in size and captions.
• As far as possible, use a similar size for all images embedded in the text.
• Regarding admissible formats, if a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint or Excel) has been used, please submit the image in the file's own format. If other applications have been used, once the figure is finished, please 'Save As', export or convert each of the image files to one of the JEPG or TIFF formats with a minimum resolution of 1,000 pixels. GIF, BMP, PICT or WPG files or images that are disproportionately large in relation to their content will not be accepted due to their low screen resolution.

4. Citation guidelines

The UNE-ISO 690:2013 system will be used in the quotations. The guidelines and detailed explanation can be obtained from this link. Articles with the APA citation system will not be accepted.

5. Submission

Lex Social will acknowledge receipt of all manuscripts received at one of the e-mail addresses indicated within ten calendar days of receipt. In this first communication the author/s will be informed of the acceptance of the work for the purpose of its subsequent peer review or rejection for not respecting the criteria that have been indicated in terms of format, languages or scope of the journal. In the latter case, if the rejection is due to formatting issues, the defects may be corrected and the manuscript may be accepted, resubmitted and submitted for peer review. If the rejection is due to the fact that the paper is not in the languages accepted by the Journal for publication, or that the paper does not address aspects of social or human rights, the manuscript will be rejected without being reviewed.

6. Review process

The journal uses the "double-blind" peer review system, so the identity of both the reviewer and the author must be unknown during the evaluation process. The manuscript will be anonymized by the Director/Editor in Chief or the Managing Editor, who will be responsible for ensuring that the identity of the evaluators and the authors of the papers cannot be revealed at any time. The evaluation process of accepted manuscripts will take a maximum period of 3 months.

After its anonymization, it will be assigned to one of the members of the Editorial Board. The latter will forward it to two members of the Review Board, subject-matter experts outside the editorial organization of the journal ("double blind" peer-review). After sending the message with the manuscript and the evaluation template, they have a period of 7 calendar days to accept or reject the evaluation. If accepted, they have a period of 30 calendar days to send a reasoned report on the scientific quality of the manuscript and their determination of whether to publish it. The external evaluations of each manuscript may adopt five types of decision:

1. Accept the text as it is.
2. Accept with minor corrections: the manuscript will be published after minor improvements.
3. Accept with substantive corrections: the manuscript will be published after major improvements have been made.
4. Reject: the manuscript requires major recommended revisions and, if made, may be subject to a new evaluation process.
5. Reject: the manuscript will not be published.

The evaluation report made by the reviewers will be examined by the person assigned from the Editorial Board. If there is no agreement among the evaluators, an additional evaluation by a third expert may be requested.

The reports of the external reviewers, duly anonymized, will be sent to the author by e-mail. In the case of minor corrections (decision 2), the author will have 7 calendar days to submit the study. In the case of substantive corrections (decision 3), the deadline will be 30 calendar days. If the study is rejected because it requires major revisions and a new evaluation process (decision 4), no deadline is set, since the new submission must initiate the acceptance procedure indicated above.

7. Publication

La Dirección de Lex Social se reserva el derecho de publicar los trabajos en una de las secciones de la Revista (Artículos Doctrinales, Estudios y comentarios, Reseñas o Crónicas de jurisprudencia).

8. Dissemination & Visibility

Once the manuscript has been published, the editors of the journal will make available to the authors the following recommendations to increase the dissemination and visibility of their contributions.

9. Inclusive language.

The journal Lex Social recommends including a gender perspective in all published research, both in the research design and in the drafting of manuscripts, when relevant.

Authors are encouraged to use inclusive and non-sexist language in the writing of any contribution to the journal. In the event that there are differences in the source data in terms of sex, this fact should be mentioned in the article.

To facilitate this task, a compilation of Guides from the Ministry of Equality is available, which compiles a non-exhaustive list of up to 120 examples with guidelines to follow.

10. Free of charge

There is currently no fee or charge for authors when submitting, accepting, reviewing or publishing manuscripts. The journal responds to the criterion of being completely free of charge. Likewise, most of the programs used for publishing (the journal's web support -Open Journal System-, entry of scientific contributions, etc.) are part of free educational and academic projects, and therefore does not depend on the large commercial groups in the scientific market.

11. Privacy notice

The names and e-mail addresses accessible to this journal will be used exclusively for the purposes stated by this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other person.

12. Funding

The author/s will include in an initial footnote whether the article has received funding from any agency or entity and the code(s) of the project(s), fellowship(s), grant(s) or subsidies in the framework of which the research that has given rise to the publication was carried out.

13. Deposit policy

Authors can make public the submitted version (or preprint) whenever they wish, without waiting for acceptance, in an institutional repository or in any other repository they wish without embargo; as well as the Accepted version (or Author Accepted Manuscript) and the Published version (or Version of Record) can be published without restrictions or embargo period from the publication in the journal.

At the same time, Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights encourages authors to deposit the complementary material, at least the research data underlying the publications, in institutional or thematic open access federated repositories in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

14. Prior notice.

Any non-compliance with these Rules or with the Code of Ethics of the journal shall constitute grounds for rejection of the submitted manuscript.

15. Archive policy.

The journal incorporates CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), LOCKSS and PKP Preservation Networks that enable libraries to preserve selected electronic journals by regularly checking registered journal websites for recently published content and archiving it for future preservation.

16. Contact.

For further information or clarifications, please contact the Director/ Editor in Chief (Prof. Carmen Salcedo Beltrán, carmen.salcedo@uv.es) or with the Managing Editor (Prof. Mónica Martínez López-Sáez, Monica.Martinez-Lopez@uv.es) and/or write to the journal’s official e-mail addresses (revistalexsocial@gmail.com o revlexsocial@upo.es)